Hend Ezat

While form and scale evoke power, the materials themselves reference it too.

The metal, carboard, readymade (ball), string etc, have their own material quality that can express their power and type of power, kind of like rock, scissors, paper, but also where they came from, or what associations do they evoke?

The failed experiments of design students have direct link to production and consumption, but more interestingly the idea of function or utility where they have been deemed as waste when they fail to be ‘useful’. I salvaged them as objects to be looked at again, to contemplate their form and status away from the intended plans of their maker.

An important role this line of work plays in my personal growth is that through it I learn to negotiate my way through chance (found materials), time and space. This allows for an experiential study of power; it is about structure, time and productivity as much as an aesthetic study of object within spatial relations in (and around) the white cube.

Whether I simply curate my found objects in the space or intervene with them, I do find a way to make them mine.

Improvisation with materials is simply a thinking exercise for me, much like drawing. The works in this series are examples of working intuitively with selected found objects in timed sessions.

Some of the materials have been leftovers from previous experiments, like the grid for example, which I’d made before. Certain materials and objects sit in my studio for quite a while until they find their place in a work, or sometimes they don’t, for no particular reason other than a subconscious discernment. Other materials are bits of packaging, bricks and offcuts of metal or ‘failed experiments’ of design students which I salvage from the workshop bins.

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Fire is a power, an energy but by definition it is a process of combustion.

Similar to fire is power when it is conceived as a process, something that is practiced rather than possessed as an object.

When melting the discarded workshop tool, the object was highly resistant to heat unlike the utensils, naturally, as it is made for heavy duty purposes.

The deformed tool, which is there to cut and shape materials is made redundant by reversing it to material itself. As if it where an object with a conscience to be reminded that it, too, is but a material.

Can the same be said about the utensils? Not quite. The flimsy and easily bent objects melted in no time, leaving a void for reflection on the poetry of the everyday which evoke social structures, some of which seem to be more resistant to reformation and reformulation.

59.4 x 84.10 cm

These drawings are a by-product from the few attempts at filming pomegranates being juiced over graph paper (see video work untitled-video 2019. A welcome unanticipated surprise at the end of shooting.

Clear acrylic objects in various contexts.

Committed to learn to let go of control and just let the line of inquiry, process and accidents open up possibilities.

I was ‘playing with fire’ literally as a process to manipulate materials and at some point I wanted to melt glass over a found metal grid. When I knew that was not possible at our facilities at Kingston School of Art, I came across an alternative, some recovered acrylic sheets which behaved differently to glass and these object were born of it.

Metal mesh, String

30 x 40 cm

A collaborative project with Eliot Lord for BCxhibition (2019) at Bentalls Centre.

Using retail strategies of seasonal marketing the work predicts a Truly Brexish Summer playing with Bentalls’ own Christmas 2017 marketing theme ‘A Truly British Christmas’ which featured all the clichéd aesthetics from jewelled union jacks, royal guards to red buses and phone booths.

Exploring structures in form of grids, I worked in time based and open-ended speculative making with some found waste in the metal workshop.

Redundant bandsaw blades, insulation foam

250 x 200 cm

Working with found materials and in time-based sessions allows me to halt the thinking (over-thinking really!) and let intuition do the work with often more satisfying results than I would have otherwise.

Art Club at Watergate Special School- London is an ongoing series of workshops in which I create a playful environment for the children to explore the selected materials at hand with the support of a lead teacher for creative learning at the school with the aim of playing together to explore different possibilities of making and allow the children the freedom to play. One of my instructions for teaching assistants who accompany some of the children is not to use the words ‘No’ or ‘Don’t’. An assertive language that empowers them is encouraged even around the safe use of materials.

The freedom and individuality of the children are just wonderful to watch and learn from. Some are hyper sensitive to textures and therefore a diverse range of materials and activities is important to consider in order to include everyone and others require prompting, praise or direction and practical help.

My daughter being on the autistic spectrum and having Down Syndrome too has been my first hand experience in understanding and being able to support the needs of the children at Art Club- Watergate.

Responding to a request from Catholic Mothers- London, I created and delivered a series of workshops with diverse methods and approaches to making inspired by art made by women.

The participants were keen on gaining essential drawings skills so we dedicated a few sessions to observational drawing and painting with graphite, charcoal, pastels and watercolour with continued drawing challenges over the week and also introduced them to contemporary drawing such as responding with movements to sound or intuition and allow themselves to be surprised. One such example was to take a dot on an exciting walk on the paper.

Similarly at a clay session, we responded to some made up instructions and exchanged challenges and collaborated in groups of three making together while blindfolded. These were inspired by work of Leap Then Look, an innovative contemporary collective/art school based in Brighton. We all had such fun with it and look forward to another series in autumn 2022.

The space was an intimate hut at our hostess’ garden, Catholic Mothers’ Nest as she calls it, which was limiting but in the same time cosy and informal. Some participants’ children joined us at times too; babies and teenagers, which was delightful.

The women’s feedback was heartwarming as they all felt more confident to experiment and not worry about mistakes or failure and dispelling common myths about art. It’s something often women suffer from, myself included, being conditioned by society and our upbringing to be perfect to be accepted and to excel to be considered good enough.